Environmental group keeping its focus on former Shell site

Friday

Mar 28, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 28, 2008 at 12:44 AM

The community has pushed to keep a liquefied natural gas terminal out of the Weaver’s Cove site and out of the city, but one group is watching to ensure that the contaminated land is managed properly no matter what the site’s use.

Grant Welker

The community has pushed to keep a liquefied natural gas terminal out of the Weaver’s Cove site and out of the city, but one group is watching to ensure that the contaminated land is managed properly no matter what the site’s use.

Citizens for Environmental Justice was formed last year with a mission to make sure environmental regulatory requirements are met for contaminated properties in the area. For now, its focus is on Weaver’s Cove, the industrial site with a number of contaminants.

On Monday, the watchdog group will hold its first of several planned public informational meetings from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Fall River Public Library. The educational program is funded by a $10,000 grant the group received last fall from the state Department of Environmental Justice.

The group’s president, Cecile Scofield, said she’s known her whole life that the 65-acre site was contaminated, and when she read that Shell Oil expressed concern about the contamination in a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, she “got scared.”

“Everything I found pointed to a problem,” Scofield said.

Citizens for Environmental Justice has used the grant to hire Dawn Oliveira, an environmental project manager with the environmental consulting firm EFI Global, to translate documents and reports into simple language people can understand.
“Every response and action needs to be tracked,” Oliveira said. “We’re not saying necessarily that what [Weaver’s Cove] is doing is wrong. They need to give us evidence that what they’ll do is right and safe. We’re waiting for the evidence to support it.”

Contamination at the site is extensive, the group says. Lead, oil, diesel, gasoline and kerosene have been found on the site, and more than 1.2 million gallons of the light non-aqueous petroleum liquids have been recovered. Beryllium and arsenic have been reported present, too, the group says.

The system in place to treat the contaminants, which includes hydraulic control of contaminated groundwater, “must remain fully operational and effective” once the site is developed, the group says, whether it is a liquefied natural gas terminal or a hotel and convention center.

Right now, the group is focused solely on Weaver’s Cove, but its leaders said it may next turn to city pier, the vacant 4-acre waterfront parcel between The Regatta and Point Gloria. That site has been found to have polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which could cost $1 million to $3.5 million to remove.

The group, which also has Michael Miozza, a board member for the Coalition for the Responsible Siting of LNG Facilities, as its vice president, will watch closely as Weaver’s Cove looks to develop the site. Because Citizens for Environmental Justice filed a public involvement plan petition, no work on the site can begin until the group is first notified.

“Even if a company is following the books,” said Chris Dawson, the group’s treasurer, “it can still endanger people’s health.”